I’ve been enjoying your newsletter so far! Thanks for writing it! A couple thoughts:
- Immediately after the 2016 election, many pundits on the left were making dire predictions about Trump becoming a literal dictator. While I agree he’s a terrible president, the worst predictions haven’t come true. I think base rate neglect explains why these predictions went wrong. I see echos of this type of thinking in the idea that the presidency will be delegitimized or that the US is likely to experience a color revolution. Do you think there’s good reason to be more confident this time around?
- I think of the three possibilities you sketch, “wreaking havoc” is the one I have the hardest time wrapping my head around. What would Trump’s motivation be for this, and what sorts of things would he do? My sense of Trump is that he’s all bark and no bite (well, maybe some bite) in the sense that the biggest damage he’s done is polarize the nation through divisive rhetoric. When it comes to actually making changes, he’s relative weak, which makes me think he wouldn’t be inclined to wreak havoc. What do you think?
You wrote this piece prior to the publication of Trump's remarks disparaging the service and sacrifice of US service members in The Atlantic (linked below). There is a non-trivial bureaucratic inertia in government, generally, but it has been a major component of military and protective services in particular. Talk with any member of the US military and you will invariably encounter all kinds of stories about paperwork and red tape. The point I am making is that one must consider the role of bureaucracy in obeying the letter of the law rather than the dictates of partisanship. The article in The Atlantic now present military and Secret Service leadership not only with the justification for following the law rather than Trump's orders, but also the motivation if Trump tries to illegally retain power. I would not expect them to tip their hand ahead of the election, but by the time Trump's term is up, I would expect that they will have expressed their intention to remove him from office should he be observed to have lost the election when the Electoral College votes are counted. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/
I’ve been enjoying your newsletter so far! Thanks for writing it! A couple thoughts:
- Immediately after the 2016 election, many pundits on the left were making dire predictions about Trump becoming a literal dictator. While I agree he’s a terrible president, the worst predictions haven’t come true. I think base rate neglect explains why these predictions went wrong. I see echos of this type of thinking in the idea that the presidency will be delegitimized or that the US is likely to experience a color revolution. Do you think there’s good reason to be more confident this time around?
- I think of the three possibilities you sketch, “wreaking havoc” is the one I have the hardest time wrapping my head around. What would Trump’s motivation be for this, and what sorts of things would he do? My sense of Trump is that he’s all bark and no bite (well, maybe some bite) in the sense that the biggest damage he’s done is polarize the nation through divisive rhetoric. When it comes to actually making changes, he’s relative weak, which makes me think he wouldn’t be inclined to wreak havoc. What do you think?
You wrote this piece prior to the publication of Trump's remarks disparaging the service and sacrifice of US service members in The Atlantic (linked below). There is a non-trivial bureaucratic inertia in government, generally, but it has been a major component of military and protective services in particular. Talk with any member of the US military and you will invariably encounter all kinds of stories about paperwork and red tape. The point I am making is that one must consider the role of bureaucracy in obeying the letter of the law rather than the dictates of partisanship. The article in The Atlantic now present military and Secret Service leadership not only with the justification for following the law rather than Trump's orders, but also the motivation if Trump tries to illegally retain power. I would not expect them to tip their hand ahead of the election, but by the time Trump's term is up, I would expect that they will have expressed their intention to remove him from office should he be observed to have lost the election when the Electoral College votes are counted. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-americans-who-died-at-war-are-losers-and-suckers/615997/
It looks like the Washington Post is thinking like you are thinking. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/09/03/trump-stay-in-office/?arc404=true